Guo, who left his native China in 2008 to escape persecution for his spiritual beliefs, is now a resident of New York. He spoke to the students about his journey out of China, his art, and his philosophy.
The legends of ancient China inspire Guo’s work. “A lot of Chinese traditional stories are very mysterious, but the way the stories are told is not well-done,” Guo said. He aspires to bring classical Chinese culture to the West through the comic arts.
His art also expresses his wish for the end of the Chinese regime’s persecution of Falun Gong in China. In 2007, he created a comic book series on the book Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, which details the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party and prompted millions of withdrawals from the Party. That comic series changed his life, he said.
After the publication of his series, Guo found himself a victim of the regime’s attack. Not only was he labeled a dissident and put under lock and key, but was stripped of his assets. “They took all my money. They took my passport,” he said. But with the help of friends in police circles, he was able to obtain documents that enabled him to emigrate.
Guo showed his audience a series of images from the collection based on the Nine Commentaries. One shows a woman pulled away by two ghoulish figures in Tiananmen Square as she grips a yellow banner protesting the persecution.
Another shows people in ordinary dress with angel wings standing over a crouching, evil red dragon symbolizing the specter of communism. Another depicts a battle between forces of divine strength and an uprooted tree of evil.
